Thing of the Day
THE NAZCA LINES, SARGASSO SEA, HAYABUSA, SUPER DISTORTION
January 9th 2011
Some new singles, some feisty new bands and another four slices just because…
THE NAZCA LINES – This Crippled Devil EP
(Stressed Sumo) - The way we like to work it around here is to just
throw things in the CD chewer without really looking at who they are or
what they’re about… Now, this band are seriously good; no idea who they
are, where they’re from, or anything about them - they sound like
they’re from US, they’re alive with a bluster of scathing energy, with
barbed suggestions of civil war and post punk flavoured hardcore
electricity, they know of lies that can kill, or flies, they know of
street names and flowers and that the bulls are running rampant and
he’s lost all his possessions... This is good, and I really hope this
band are from Seattle or Baltimore, and not Blackpool or Guildford:
there is nothing English here besides the language, and that use of the
Queen’s English is very American sounding.
Let's do
some reeeesearch. The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs
located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were designated a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994… hang on, wrong lines. These Lines,
these Nazca Lines are indeed from Seattle, for Nazca Lines is the name
of this rather scathing band. There’s four on them in the band, and
they’ve got three rather urgent tracks here on the single coming at us
via Derby’s Stressed Sumo Records. We're talking North American
post-rock/post-punk energy and urgency, a sound not a millions miles
away from a blend you’ve heard many times before – Refused, At The
Drive-In, Fugazi, Sicbay, Tribute To Nothing – But not just another one
of those, there’s some depth here. Their musical moves and lyrical
twists stand up to closer inspection, to repeated blastations out of
the Organ bunker. No tunnel vision déjà vu here, no rescue in sight
either. Sinking boats? Nah, nothing sinking here, everything floating
and if this is an opening shot in terms of Stressed Sumo releasing
Nazca Lines material over here then bring on the new album (the band’s
second) and whatever else they have waiting. Damn fine first bite of a
North American post-punk alt.rock three track single.
The EP is out in the UK on Stressed Sumo on January 31st. More from:
www.myspace.com/nazcalines
www.stressedsumorecords.co.uk
SARGASSO SEA – Madonna
(Vivid) – We have here a four track EP from Sargasso Sea, the music
vehicle of Elisabeth Oswell. Previous to forming Sargasso Sea,
Elisabeth, it seems, spent “a long time performing on the UK
avant-burlesque scene, creating surreal and subversive oeuvres using
dance, voice and dramatic visuals…” She has also, in the past, lent her
vocals to the live incarnation of Hush Arbors. This is a
four-version EP of a seductively dark-textured song called Madonna,
a mysteriously soothing, silky smooth piece of warm seductive goth-noir
in a beautifully serene white cotton dress gone to bathe in the water
of an immaculate queen. Dreamy, silky, slow seduction, velvet darkness,
warmth wrapped to the ankles in white cotton…. Four mixes, four
beautifully dreamy creamy shimmering versions and each one
significantly different to each other to reveal different sets of
colours with every play. Gloriously dreamy slowly unwrapping, spiritual
warmth, velvet undergrounds, French pop, dark seduction, Cocteau
Twins... Beautifully beguiling haunting angelic voice, dusty dreamy
meanderings.. .Fine fine mixes from Andrew Lines (Current 93, Nurse
With Wound) and Big Lion - mixes that enhance, that add even more
colour to the already so alive other-worldly pallet of subtly glowing
hues… This is beautifully detailed, delicately constructed, this is not
something to grab and judge after thirsty seconds of a MySpace visit,
this is something to slowly unwrap and gently discover – discover it,
bath in it, let the glowing sound slowly engulf you, put it on repeat
and let it take over your day. Serene mellow beauty…
The lead version of Madonna is out as a download via Vivid Records now - http://vividrecordsuk.bandcamp.com/track/madonna
The four track EP is out via Vivid in February.
More from www.myspace.com/full-colour or www.vividrecords.com
HAYABUSA – Evil Is Not That Laid Back
(Midge Bitten) – Well, those vocals and that rather conservative
opening to the one track we have here, along with that dangerously
emo-flavoured style of delivery, kind of lull these ears towards a
sense of dislike - oh no, we’ve got another one of those shallow
over-slick emo rock bed-wetting My Chemical Whatever bands on our
hands… Hang on though, that was a good bit just there, a clever
twist here… Kind of sold themselves short with that conservative
start to this almost five minute track. There’s a touch of
imagination bubbling under somewhere here, a touch of (very)
modern prog. Knitting together a lot of modern flavours, yet they
desperately need to put their own fingerprint on it all. Touches of
Oceansize, maybe a hint of Meshuggah; they’ve certainly shoved a lot in
to those four minutes and fifty one seconds of modern rock energy.
Those electronic vocal effects and those clean cut undercurrents are
really not to anyone’s tastes around here, neither is that vocal
style ... but these Mancunians might have something in here worth
exploring. This one track has us curiously sitting on the fence wonder
if there’s anymore and if this band are actually any good or not…
Evil Is Not Laid Back is out on Midge Bitten on January 24th
www.myspace.com/hayabusaband
SUPER DISTORTION – Resonating World
(Pointy Bird) – Is this hippy nonsense resonating in a world gone
orange and blue, or is it a glorious piece of 70’s retro alive with a
Stylophone solo in the middle of an old-school guitar pop stomp and the
flutes and the bits of ELO and a touch of didgeridoo! Preposterous or
preposterously good?
Eight minutes of
psychedelic freak-out pop rock: Jethro Tull meets a Lighting Seeds take
on psychedelic Beatles. Excellent no messing ‘proper’ guitar sound that
leads almost immediately to a Seventies stomp and a Tull flute or maybe
a touch of some Mike Oldfield. All good then? The psychedelic
folk rock of the hurdy gurdy man comes singing songs of joy…
Steve Hillage meets Roy Wood meets some strange TV advert with a car
full of sunshine, jelly beans and Dalmatian dogs are running around.
Sounds like a guilty pleasure of a classic 70’s one-off single. “Pete
strives to provide some contrast to current trends…” reads the press
release as he sings about how maybe he should just run away and live in
a wood. Actually, this is a preposterously good slice of 70’s pop rock…
Released on January 31st
www.pointybirdrecords.co.uk
